Notes from the Cowtown Marathon

I'm 55 years old, and today I ran my 55th marathon, the Cowtown Marathon in Fort Worth, Texas. It is also the 11th one I've dedicated to the cause of political prisoner Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.

She's a Pakistani woman academic serving an 86-year prison sentence in Fort Worth, TX. The evidence against her at trial was completely trumped up, and continuing to imprison her is one of the greatest crimes by the U.S. government against the Ummah.

 Since it was close to International Women's Day, I also dedicated my race to the cause of Palestinian women political prisoners. Israel currently holds 800+ Palestinian women without charge or trial. They are denied all family contact and access to counsel. Many of them have been raped, tortured, and beaten in detention. All of this is in clear violation of international rules and law, and Israel must be held accountable.

Personal notes:

 - My finish time was a miserable 4:21 (read 4 hrs 21 minutes). Still, it was (by my novice standards) not bad for an out-of-town marathon, particularly one done in my new-found role as caregiver (with the massive amounts of sleep lag that entails).

- I placed 3rd place in my division.

- The course was hilly, and traversed a good chunk of Fort Worth.

- Around Mile 8, a group of strong, fast Pakistani male runners caught up to me. I noticed them because they were talking incessantly in Urdu amongst themselves, about different marathons in Pakistan. They talked even as we were going up some of the steeper hills! One of them was Dallas-based physician Salman Khan. He was running the ultra-marathon (50k, or 31.06 miles), while pacing his friends. The other two had traveled all the way from Karachi for today's race.

- Of the two Pakistanis who had come from Karachi, one was running the ultra, while the other was doing the marathon. And these men had trained in Pakistan, with its very hot, humid climate, rolling blackouts (“load-shedding”), and adverse (in many areas) running conditions. So, they were not only fit, but had great dedication and discipline to get to this point.

- One of them later told me he was the nephew of Pasban Party chair Altaf Shakoor and lived in his house. (Pasban is a populist Pakistani political party, which advocates for workers rights and social justice. Some of its principals have been prominent in the Pakistan-based Aafia Movement.)

- So, Altaf’s nephew had seen me from time to time on his uncle’s Facebook page. Altaf himself was very active in the movement to free Aafia. Unfortunately, it didn’t appear that the nephew was involved in that, or any other social justice cause.

- I was thrilled to learn that Pakistan now hosted marathons, something that seemed like a pipe dream in the past. At the same time, it saddened me that well-trained, extremely fit Pakistani athletes like the ones I met at Cowtown, and others representing Pakistan on an official level failed to use their position to advocate for Aafia, or, it seemed, for any social justice issue. Perhaps the dual challenges of training in extremely adverse climate and getting the funding they needed to travel to far away competitions precluded them from anything but the actual race.

 - The temperature at Cowtown was 76 degrees for the last hour. That's hot for a marathon. And it didn't help that I had trained exclusively in the DC-Maryland area, where it is much cooler.

- Complete disclosure: I planned to wear my kaffiyah (Palestinian scarf) during the race, and even brought it to the start line for the purpose. But it was simply too hot. And I wimped. I put it on only afterwards.

- I was not feeling it today, and wanted dearly to quit midway through the race, but I had too many people waiting on me at the prison to vigil for Aafia afterwards. Once again the mental image of Aafia’s sweet, innocent face, swathed in her now famous yellow hijab, propelled me across the finish line.

 

#FreeAafiaSiddiqui #FreePalestine #FreeAllPoliticalPrisoners